Mechanism for Facilitating Multiple Multimedia Viewing Planes in Media Display Systems

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the interprocess communication is via messaging.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the content types include at least one of web content, television programming, media streaming, multimedia streaming, video streams, navigation ribbon, category ribbon, information panel, action menu, media object ribbon, DVD-based media, name/symbol/logo/icon, and a channel guide.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the interprocess communication comprises a master process that performs multidirectional messaging with each of the first process and the second process.

6. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein in the multidirectional messaging, the master process selects whether to forward received messages to the first process or to the second process based on the one or more multimedia content types selected by the user.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, wherein the messages selectively forwarded to the first process determine the display of the content on the first multimedia plane, and the messages selectively forwarded to the second process determine the display of the content on the second multimedia plane.

8. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the first process and the second process communicate with the integrated user interface via the multidirectional messaging with the master process, and a third process associated with one or more of the multimedia planes communicates with the master process via multidirectional messaging with the integrated user interface.

10. The medium as recited in claim 9, wherein the interprocess communication is via messaging.

11. The medium as recited in claim 9, wherein the content types include at least one of web content, television programming, media streaming, multimedia streaming, video streams, navigation ribbon, category ribbon, information panel, action menu, media object ribbon, DVD-based media, name/symbol/logo/icon, and a channel guide.

14. The media processing device as recited in claim 13, wherein the interprocess communication is via messaging.

15. The media processing device as recited in claim 13, wherein the content types include at least one of web content, television programming, media streaming, multimedia streaming, video streams, navigation ribbon, category ribbon, information panel, action menu, media object ribbon, DVD-based media, name/symbol/logo/icon, and a channel guide.

18. The method as recited in claim 17, wherein the communication is via messaging.

19. The method as recited in claim 17, wherein the content types include at least one of web content, television programming, media streaming, multimedia streaming, video streams, navigation ribbon, category ribbon, information panel, action menu, media object ribbon, DVD-based media, name/symbol/logo/icon, and a channel guide.